The end of Christianity in a “cradle” of our faith?

It’s been a while since I’ve written on the Middle East, but this is not for lack of news from the region. For example:

• British Prime Minister said yesterday that the UK will recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza and takes steps toward long-term peace.
• France announced last week that it will recognize Palestinian statehood as part of “its historical commitment to a just and durable peace in the Middle East.”
• The Gaza Health Ministry (run by Hamas) says the number of Palestinians killed has passed sixty thousand, though they make no distinction between civilians and Hamas terrorists.
• A UN group says Gaza is experiencing famine conditions, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that “there is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.”

While such headlines dominate coverage of the region, there’s also news from the Middle East that you may have missed. I certainly did. It’s a crisis that should be on our minds and hearts today, for reasons that affect us all.

Believers in the land where Paul met Jesus

Last year, an Islamist leader named Ahmed al-Sharaa led an uprising that overthrew the Assad regime in Syria. However, his coalition holds less than half of the country’s territory.

The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces control vast parts of northeast Syria. Druze militias hold key positions in the southwest. There are several scenarios by which this situation plays out on the global stage.

In the background, however, a tragedy continues to unfold that is being unreported by most of the media. A longtime friend who served for more than thirty years in Congress and now works to advance human rights around the world has alerted me to what could be the possible end of Christianity in one of the “cradles” of our faith.

Earlier this month, intense fighting broke out in Syria between Druze and Sunni Bedouins. Amid the conflict in which more than a thousand people were killed, Christian churches and villages have been burned and their populations displaced. An evangelical pastor and his entire family were brutally murdered.

The Christian community in Syria was targeted weeks earlier by a suicide bombing in a Damascus church, followed by an arson attack on a church in the southwest part of the country. In March, massacres that mostly targeted Alawites also resulted in Christian deaths.

As the number of Syrian Christians declines dramatically, believers in the land where Paul met Jesus could one day be no more.

“A great multitude that no one could number”

Yesterday we focused on the compassion we should have for hurting people, since they are loved by our Father and should be loved by his children as well. Today, let’s note that we should especially have such compassion for our sisters and brothers in the faith.

Christians should of all people live in solidarity with each other, since each of us has been “born again” as children of God into his eternal family (John 3:3; 1:12; cf. Matthew 12:50). We are members of the same “household” (Galatians 6:10) and part of the same “body” (1 Corinthians 12:27). We share the same Father (Matthew 6:9) and will live eternally with “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9).

This solidarity is not exclusionary. To the contrary, because we have experienced the transformational love of God and of his people, we should want everyone we know to have what we have.

The closer we draw to our Father and our faith family, the more we are empowered and impassioned to open our family to the world.

Why Satan hates Christian unity

Such unity threatens our enemy in ways we need to understand.

Satan knows Jesus’ promise, “If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). And he knows our Lord’s commitment: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (v. 20).

He remembers the powerful unity of the first Christians (Acts 2:42–46) which led to their “having favor with all the people” (v. 47a) so that “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (v. 47b). He knows that when we are “perfectly one,” the world will believe that the Father sent the Son (John 17:23).

So we can expect Satan to do everything he can do to destroy the unity of God’s people.

• He tempts us to be so consumeristic that we view the plight of Syrian Christians as less than relevant to our daily lives.
• He focuses our attention so fully on the failures of church leaders (sins that must no doubt be held accountable) that we are less concerned about our personal failures and their consequences.
• He tempts us with transactionalism that measures our experience in Christian community by what we “get out of it.”

The good news is that Jesus is praying for our unity right now (John 17:21; Romans 8:34). The closer we draw to him, the closer we draw to each other. And the more we recognize our need for each other.

“It doesn’t seem that you need us”

A longtime mentor once told me about a couple who visited his church on a Sunday morning. He met with them in their home that week, where they told him they had decided to join his church. However, they then added their parameters for membership: the services they would attend, the activities in which they would participate, the ministries they would support.

The pastor responded, “It doesn’t seem that you would be happy at our church. You might consider looking for another place of worship.” Surprised, they asked him why. He explained: “We are a family that needs each other. We get together on Sunday to find enough strength to make it to Wednesday, then we get together on Wednesday to find enough strength to make it to Sunday. It doesn’t seem that you need us.”

The wife prodded her husband and said, “Tell him.” Her husband then said through tears, “Pastor, you don’t know how wrong you are. Our daughter-in-law has just filed for divorce from our son and taken our grandchildren. We have no idea when we will see them again or how to help our son.”

The pastor replied, “On second thought, you would be welcome at our church.”

Who is welcome at the church of your heart today?

Quote for the day:

“To gather with God’s people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.” —Martin Luther

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